Friend Richardson - Biography

Biography

William Richardson was born in December 1865 to William and Rhoda Richardson at Friends Colony, Michigan, a Quaker township located outside of Ann Arbor. Early in his life, William legally changed his first name to "Friend", the traditional Quaker greeting. In his young adult life, Richardson worked as a county clerk and law librarian, and following his move to San Bernardino, California, married Augusta Felder in 1891, whom he would have three children with. Five years later, Richardson became the owner and newspaper editor of The San Bernardino Times Index.

In 1900, Richardson relocated to Berkeley where he purchased within a year The Berkeley Daily Gazette and became active in the California Press Association. Due to greater name recognition, Richardson was increasingly noticed by the state government. In 1901, Richardson was appointed as Superintendent of the State Printing Office with the consent of the California State Legislature and Governor Henry Gage. The Richardson family relocated to Sacramento where he assumed state printing responsibilities, while at the same time, continuing to own his newspapers in both San Bernardino and Berkeley.

In 1914, Richardson officially entered politics, running as a Progressive for California State Treasurer. Richardson easily defeated his Socialist and Prohibitionist rivals by a voting gap of 66 percent. Following the Progressive Party's collapse, Richardson again won a second term as Treasurer in 1918, this time as a Republican, and again won a landslide victory against his Socialist and Prohibitionist rivals by garnering 78.2 percent of the vote.

After two successful terms as state treasurer, Richardson set his sights on the governorship as the Republican Party's nomination in 1922. Running against incumbent William Stephens in the party's primary election, Richardson campaigned on a conservative platform, capitalizing on electoral fatigue with Progressive-minded politics. The campaign worked, successfully defeating Governor Stephens and effectively returned the state Republican Party to a more conservative bent.

With Stephens out of the 1922 general elections, Richardson faced Democrat Thomas L. Woolwine, the popular District Attorney of Los Angeles County. Amongst Richardson's supporters in the election were the Ku Klux Klan, which deeply opposed Woolwine's Catholicism, as well as being an organization that was rumored to count Richardson as a member. His campaign manager in the election, California State Assemblyman Frank Merriam, would himself become governor in 1934. In the end, Richardson triumphed in the election, defeating Woolwine by nearly 24 percent of the vote.